ABOUT JOELLE STEELE

Joelle Steele is a high-IQ (186) polymath with extensive credentials in many fields. She is a writer, genealogist, legal writer, editor, artist, photographer, and publisher. Many of her non-fiction works are about these subjects.

On graduation from high school, Steele received a summer scholarship in intensive conversational French from the Monterey Institute of Foreign Studies (now Middlebury Institute of International Studies). She earned an Associate in Arts from Santa Monica College, and a Bachelor of Arts in Language Arts (a double-major in English and Linguistics) from California State University, Hayward (now East Bay). She also has Vocational Certificates in Ornamental Horticulture and Interior Design. Over the years, she has also attended a variety of colleges to take classes to upgrade her skills and knowledge. She has a working proficiency in Spanish and French; and an elementary reading ability in Italian, Swedish, and Latin.

Art - Illustration - Photography

Joelle's parents both loved art and could draw well. Her step-grandfather was a trained artist from Italy, and some of her mother's friends were also artists. As a child, Joelle had nine years of art instruction in Carmel, California. In 1970, while in college in the San Francisco Bay Area, she worked part-time as a senior illustrator and copywriter for an advertising agency. She had her first art show of eight very large oils in 1976. Ten years later, she created acrylic paintings for designers to match their clients' needs in southern California. She has also taught watercolor painting to adults.

Joelle's parents also came from families who never went anywhere without their cameras. She joined their ranks by the age of 10. As an adult, she owned a portrait photography business and photographed portfolios for others in southern California. Joelle still loves photography, digitally restores old photos, and likes to take photos of nature "up close."

Music

Joelle's parents had hundreds of records. Once again, Joelle followed in their footsteps. Today, her iPOD has more than 2,000 songs from all music genres on it. As a child, she took piano lessons for nine years and can't play a note. From about 1984-1996, she occasionally sang lead vocals with a band at fund-raisers in southern California. In the mid-1970s, Joelle co-owned a small recording studio in the San Francisco Bay Area. She produced and co-produced demos, commercials, and corporate soundtracks. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she wrote advertising jingles for an advertising agency. Throughout her life she has written many songs and song lyrics in need of someone to create sheet music and record them.

Writing & Publishing

Joelle's parents both liked to write and were avid readers. Joelle was reading by the age of 3, and is also an avid reader of fiction and non-fiction. She reads at least one book per week, to the tune of more than 4,500 books to date.

Her writing career began early in life too. She adapted a play from a children’s novel at age 10, wrote her first and only play at age 13, wrote her first novel at age 16, another at age 19, and a third at age 21. Those novels, though not suitable for publishing, were a learning experience in developing characters and plots.

Joelle's first articles and a short story were published in 1973. In 1976, her first book of poetry, "Under A Weeping Sky," was published, and in 1980, her first novel, "The Rosary Bed," was published.

From about 1975 to 1977, Joelle worked nights as a legal assistant, weekends at the recording studio she co-owned, and weekdays as the Vice President and Creative Director for a book publisher - all in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was a three-year period of endless work.

From about 1983 to 1997, Joelle edited and published several small press periodicals, and from about 1998 to 2008, she edited upwards of 35 doctoral theses and more than 125 books.

Joelle is the author of 66 books (37 still in print, 2 in progress, fiction and non-fiction); 800+ articles; 60+ short stories; 9 advice columns; 40+ illustrated genealogical histories for her clients, and numerous co-writes, contributing chapters, poems, lyrics, ad copy, jingles, speeches, interviews, and works for hire. Some of her books are also available in Spanish and French editions.

Genealogy

Since 1974, Joelle has been practicing genealogy. She began with her own family histories, and began practicing professionally in 1983. By 1994, her genealogy business had expanded thanks to the availability of a few early genealogy websites. She then started editing, writing, and publishing illustrated histories for her clients. She specializes in "deep dive" genealogy, often following her clients' roots back as far as a thousand years into the past. For five years, she was a volunteer editor and typesetter for the newsletter of the Swedish-Finn Historical Society.

Landscape Industry

In 1979, Steele worked as the office manager and interior landscaper for a landscape contractor in southern California. By 1983, she co-owned a landscape business; wrote articles for numerous horticultural publications; and consulted and lectured internationally to the landscape trades. She owned two businesses for interior landscapers: an employment referral service and a quality control inspection service. She published two landscape periodicals; edited and published several horticultural books for others; and wrote and published eight of her own books for the interior landscape industry, including the "English & Spanish Guide to Interior Landscape Maintenance." Joelle is a court-certified expert in the usual and customary practices in the landscape industry.

Face & Ear Identification

In 1975, while helping a friend identify her family members in old albums, Joelle became interested in the use of the ears to identify people in photographs. In San Francisco that year, she met the world-renowned ear expert, Al Iannarelli, the author of "Ear Identification." After Iannarelli passed away in 2012, Joelle wrote and published "The External Ear," a more detailed book on ear identification based on her own experience as a genealogist identifying faces in old photograph albums, and using the wealth of ear photographs available for analysis online. She is also the author of several books on face identification, including "Face to Face: Analysis and Comparison of Facial Features to Authenticate Identities of People in Photographs." Joelle is a court-certified expert in ear and face identification.

Handwritten Forgery Detection

Joelle was interested in handwriting analysis at an early age, but was not interested in the psychological interpretation of handwriting. Instead, she was interested in detecting forgery, especially in handwritten signatures. She is the author of "Sign Here! Detecting Forgery in Handwritten Signatures." Joelle is a court-certified expert in handwritten forgery detection.

Contract Templates

In 1974, Joelle took classes on the Constitution and the law, torts, business law, and two courses in legal writing. In 1983, she began selling pre-printed contract forms for contractors and other small busineses which she sold by mail order through ads in various trade magazines. In 1994, she converted all those forms into customizable Word templates and sold them on one of her old websites (now for sale on joellesteele.com).

Teaching

In 1983, Joelle began teaching adult ed/continuing ed classes in southern California. She also lectured to small businesses and small press publishers and was a marketing expert on a call-in radio show for two years. The first adult ed class she taught was on writing poetry. From that point on, she taught classes in writing, publishing, genealogy, horticulture, small business management, website design, HTML/CSS, cat care, and many other subjects. After moving to Washington state in 2004, she became adjunct faculty at eight colleges. She still speaks and teaches occasionally and has also developed online classes for colleges and other organizations.

Property Management

Joelle came from three generations of a family that owned apartment buildings in San Francisco and houses and farms in several areas of northern California. From 1975-1978, Joelle was the resident manager of a 9-unit apartment building in Burlingame, California. From 1984 to 1997, she was a resident manager of an 18-unit building and also managed 188 units (apartments, duplexes, and houses) in the areas of Venice Beach, Santa Monica, and West Los Angeles.

Websites

On August 15, 1994, Steele created her first website that she still has today: joellesteele.com. She has had up to 20 other websites over the years, but consolidated all of them into joellesteele.com in 2024, except for postcardpeddler.com which is a separate site. From 1994 to 2014, she also designed and managed websites for others.

Assorted Part-Time and Temp Jobs

Joelle's first job was at the age of 8 when she delivered prescriptions on her bicycle after school for her godfather's pharmacy. She also worked in the office of her parents' business from the age of 10 to 18. She has since worked as a photo archivist, legal secretary, marketing writer, proofreader, ad builder/designer, inventory clerk, data entry clerk, mail list manager, accounts receivable clerk, statistical typist, and soldering technician.

Volunteer Work

Joelle's first volunteer work was in her late teens helping her mother administer hearing tests for Quota International on the Monterey Peninsula. While a student at Cal State Hayward (now East Bay) during the Vietnam era, Joelle wrote letters home for returning soldiers who were badly injured and being shipped to hospitals throughout the U.S. While in southern California, Joelle edited and published newsletters free of charge for several non-profit organizations. She was active in Consumer Action and Consumers Act Now in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1970s. She volunteered as a procurements director for a non-profit organization and located unwanted/unused items to donate to small non-profit organizations that needed those items. As a writer, Joelle has donated many hours to helping dyslexic people decipher written documents and write letters, fill out applications, etc. Since 1980, when she was seriously ill and living in her car on the streets of Los Angeles, Joelle has donated her time and money to help the homeless.